Washington's newest arms race pits the State Department against the Pentagon, which are feuding over who should make the decisions on supplying military aid to foreign nations.

And to the consternation of the diplomats, the generals are on a winning streak.The Pentagon is steering a growing pot of money, equipment and training to help countries fight terrorism, stem the drug trade and deter a rising China and resurgent Russia. Congress is poised to further expand the military's ability to ship arms overseas — causing the State Department and its supporters on Capitol Hill to warn that some of the aid may contradict broader U.S. interests, such as promoting human rights.

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Countries the Pentagon wants to assist include Burkina Faso, which the State Department has singled out for using excessive force against detainees and discriminating against women, and Tajikistan, where the department says torture and "repression of political activism" run rampant. In some recent cases, officials say, the State Department has learned of the aid only after the fact.

"It is militarizing foreign policy," said one administration official, who described a “groundswell of a freak-out” bubbling upin Foggy Bottom. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, asserted that military officers eager to get results on the battlefield have become the face of the U.S. government in too many countries.

Secretary of State John Kerry and his deputy, Tony Blinken, have raised similar concerns in recent discussions with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, according to several knowledgeable officials. The panel’s chairman, Tennessee Republican Bob Corker, has raised them as well.

“Both the State and Defense departments play important roles in the delivery of security assistance, but the process should reflect the reality that these are fundamentally foreign policy decisions about advancing U.S interests,” Corker told POLITICO in a statement. Even as the Pentagon's authority expands, "these cases still must flow through the same process as cases initiated through the State Department and with the State Department’s approval prior to congressional review."

Supporters of the Pentagon's growing prominence in security assistance counter that the State Department's process for approving and implementing the aid programs is too slow and cumbersome. They also say it’s out of sync with the urgent demand to strengthen the capacity of military partners, particularly in the Middle East.

The seeds of the conflict were planted early in the Obama administration when the Pentagon put forward "some of the most aggressive proposals possible," said Andrew Shapiro, who served as assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs from 2009 to 2013, recalling a "painful, painful process. "

He said the swing in the Pentagon's favor was a direct result of meetings in which top U.S. military commanders around the world complained that the State Department was moving too slowly. "They all said: 'You've got to do something. We can’t assist our partners quickly enough,'" said Shapiro, who is now managing director at Beacon Global Strategies.

But now may be time for a reassessment, said Troy Thomas, special assistant to the president for national security."During the course of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in particular — and then more recently related to Iraq and Syria — there has been this steady accumulation of very specific authorities that have largely gone over to the Department of Defense," the former AirForce officer and special assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in an interview. But now that large-scale combat in Iraq and Afghanistan has diminished, "It's a fair question to ask, 'Do we have the balance right between State and DoD?'"

For decades, the power largely rested with the State Department, which is responsible for setting and implementing foreign policy. It has traditionally played the lead role in deciding who should get U.S. security assistance and has asserted its authority to squelch military proposals it considers unwise, officials said.

Last year, the department vetoed a Pentagon plan to train snipers from Belarus, which has no free elections and where political dissidents continue to disappear with no government explanation. State also recently scuttled a plan to provide lip balm and brooms to the Jordanian military — items the department deemed wasteful.

The Defense Department, though, increasingly has dollars on its side. The Pentagon's budget for such overseas military aid has more than tripled from 2008 to 2015, compared with just 23 percent growth for the State Department, according to internal administration data provided to POLITICO.Last year, more than $11 billion worth of Pentagon programs went to arm and train security forces from Latin America to the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia. The programs included training foreign military forces, providing a host of weapons and technologies to carry out counterterrorism operations and border security and beef up naval forces.

Current law gives the State Department input — and in some cases veto power — over the programs. But the defense policy legislation being fashioned in Congress would expand the Pentagon's role even more. The proposals lawmakers will review include allowing the military to fund security assistance programs over a number of years, instead of having to seek annual government reviews and appropriations.

The White House is trying to referee the disputes.

"You are going to see disagreement any time DoD is proposing a change of program in a way that the State Department would perceive as diminishing the degree of coordination that is required," said a senior administration official directly involved in the internal deliberations.

Even without a change in the law, though, the State Department has found itself virtually shut out of the review process in some cases, according to interviews with current and former department officials. For example, the diplomats recently learned the Pentagon was funding counter-narcotics operations in several nations in Central Asia that the State Department had previously deemed ineligible for military assistance. State also learned from media reports that the Pentagon was training a controversial Cambodian army general.

And despite efforts to better coordinate the two departments' activities, confusion remains about who is doing what. One consequence: The Pentagon has a program underway to provide $100 million worth of new helicopters to the Kenyan military, while State has separately pursued efforts to supply it with used helicopters.

Some in the State Department are also still smarting from the establishment by Congress of the Counterterrorism Partnership Fund in 2014, in which all the money went to the Defense Department.

The Pentagon, at least officially, maintains it's getting guidance on all its security assistance plans from the State Department.

"The [Defense] Department recognizes and supports the State Department's role as coordinator of U.S. foreign policy, and works to ensure consistency of all DoD activities with U.S. foreign policy objectives through careful, consistent coordination," said Pentagon spokesman Col. Joe Sowers.

Publicly, the State Department also strikes a cooperative tone, while highlighting its primary role in foreign policy.

"The State Department has a long history of working with our implementing partners at DoD to build the capacity of partner nations to defend themselves, contribute to regional security, and participate in coalition operations," said State Department spokesman David McKeeby. "We are working with [the White House Office of Management and Budget] and DoD to strengthen these tools while ensuring foreign policy oversight."

Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, recently proposed that the so-called Maritime Security Initiative — which Defense Secretary Ash Carter launched in June to help outfit Southeast Asian allies to confront China's military expansion in the South China Sea — be transferred to the State Department. He raised concerns that the new program would not follow a "whole of government" approach if directed by the Pentagon.

One of the administration officials complained that the military assistance contradicts the United States' diplomatic posture in the region. "We are telling China not to militarize the South China Sea," the official said. "But we are now giving money to DoD for this."

In the latest sign of the military's expanding role, the Pentagon is seeking $1 billion for the Counterterrorism Partnership Fund. Uses of the money would include a range of intelligence-gathering and small arms training for African nations with spotty human rights records, such as Burkina Faso.

The State Department isn't concerned solely about human rights and the aid recipients' international behavior. Its supporters also argue that the State Department is better positioned than the military to manage the programs long-term.

"There is no sustainment process with DoD," said another administration official involved in the policy debate. "Ships we have provided are rusting pierside."

A recent analysis by the Congressional Research Service also concluded that recent policy decisions "have combined to slowly muddle the clear legal separation between State and DoD roles." A March 9 analysis by the government-funded Rand Corp. similarly called for reviewing the two departments' "roles, interests and coordination processes."

"This trend of giving more and more authority and taking them away from State is not a great thing," said Ilan Goldenberg, who runs the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. "It is largely a function that in Congress DoD gets a lot more attention and has a lot more leverage."

Goldenberg, who has seen the debate play out as a Pentagon and State Department official and a staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he's "pretty sympathetic to the State folks on this question."

"The State Department is supposed to manage foreign policy and and making sure these efforts are in line with our interests," he said. "Giving military support to any of our partners is fundamentally a political act and a foreign policy action."

But the senior administration official doesn't think the debate will be settled any time soon. "I think it's an appropriate question for this or the next administration to take up with Congress," he said.